


Live, My Friend

by Marie_Iliea



Series: Candid Shots [3]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Tragedy, Emotional Hurt, Epic Bromance, Epic Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Illnesses, Self-Sacrifice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-28
Updated: 2018-02-28
Packaged: 2019-03-25 01:03:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13823199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marie_Iliea/pseuds/Marie_Iliea
Summary: McCoy’s eyes drifted closed just as the door slid open before Spock, and the sight of his friend slumping over caused a knifing sensation in his heart. He bolted to the doctor’s side, noticing the pallor of McCoy’s face and the used hypo on the desk.He knew what had happened.He knew why.He still couldn’t quite believe it.





	Live, My Friend

Spock didn’t swear, but the sight before him almost changed that. He suddenly understood McCoy’s irrepressible need to insult the Captain anytime he became hurt as his human side was suddenly inspired to call the man lying before him several uncomplimentary names.

The word he spoke instead carried the weight of all his anger, helplessness, sorrow, and fear.

_“Leonard…”_

 

* * *

 

Just five minutes earlier the doctor had been fine, if utterly worn out and absolutely at a loss for what to do. The disease running rampant through the ship had already killed more than a hundred of the crew and passengers aboard — and to make matters worse, Kirk, Chekov, and Uhura had caught it. So far maybe a quarter of those afflicted had recovered — or begun to — on their own. Most of the rest hovered in that tiny doorway between life and death. Uhura was one of the first, Checkov the second — but the third group contained just one victim, and of course it had to be the Captain.

“Damnit, Spock, it’s almost like he’s _allergic_ to the damn virus!”

“Is that even possible, Doctor?”

“The hell if I know! He was born in space, during an attack from a ship that came from a different time through a hole in said space! We already know screwed with his eye color — I have no idea what those kinds of gravitational and other stresses could actually have done to him! To everyone else this is like a highly fatal form of the Orion flu — to Jim, it’s practically a biochemical attack!”

Spock eyed the distressed McCoy placidly.

“I have the utmost faith in your abilities, Doctor,” he said.

“Spock, the only chance I’ve got is if this compound M’Benga and I came up with works. But I need someone on whom to test it; I’ve tested it in every way I can except on a patient.”

“What is the problem?” Ah, obviously Spock wasn’t unfamiliar with McCoy’s facial expressions.

“It’s kinda like that cure for cancer at the turn of the twenty-first century. Chemotherapy worked to kill cancerous cells, but it killed a lot of healthy ones too. Someone even said that it was like ‘hoping the treatment kills the disease before it kills you.’”

Spock studied him for a moment, and then turned away.

“Perhaps one of the afflicted would be willing to be a test subject.”

"You're going to go beg somebody to probably die before they maybe get better?" The Vulcan shot him a dark look.

"Vulcans do not  _beg_. I will see if any of the crew will volunteer."

McCoy engaged the privacy lock on the door and enforced that with a medical override as soon as Spock left. Loading a vial of the compound into a hypo he breathed deeply and then injected himself quickly, before he lost his nerve. Trembling, he set the hypo on the desk and then slid to the floor, leaning against one of its legs.

He had a couple minutes before the effects of the compound became irreversible; hence the locks, so Spock couldn’t stop him. Maybe the Vulcan hadn’t been paying attention after all — he’d fallen for it easily, mistaking McCoy’s growing illness as fatigue.

The compound burned through his veins, and from outside he could hear Spock returning, trying to override the locks on the door. He’d do it, soon, but McCoy had bought himself enough time. If this solution didn’t work, all his notes were sitting there on the table, accessible and easy enough for Spock to read. He’d do an autopsy, figure out what went wrong, and try again. Between the two of them, Spock and M’Benga could figure it out.

If it worked, great…but the risk had just been too damn high.

Blessed cold ate through him behind the fire of the treatment, and as it stole him away Spock finally made it through the door. His last sight was the twisted, horrified expression on the First Officer’s face, and he thought that maybe, just maybe, his friendship with the hobgoblin wasn’t entirely one-way.

 

* * *

 

McCoy’s eyes drifted closed just as the door slid open before Spock, and the sight of his friend slumping over caused a knifing sensation in his heart. He bolted to the doctor’s side, noticing the pallor of McCoy’s face and the used hypo on the desk.

He knew what had happened.

He knew why.

He still couldn’t quite believe it.

Trembling, he reached out to check for a pulse, relief throbbing within him in time with the labored heartbeat under his fingers. Shouting for M’Benga he stretched his friend out on the floor, pillowing McCoy’s head on his leg. The other doctor burst in, figuring out what had happened almost as quickly as Spock had. He ran a tricorder over his boss, frowning at what he saw.

“I’ll be right back with a gurney,” he said. Spock shook his head and simply lifted McCoy in his arms, noticing how light the man seemed. How long had he been ill?

As Spock carried him to the one bed left open as a ‘scanning only’ bed (for biobeds were much more detailed than tricorders), McCoy’s head fell against Spock’s neck, the skin of his face touching the greener skin of the Vulcan. Impressions filtered into Spock’s mind, tiny, fleeting things that he almost couldn’t identify. Pain. Resignation. A desperate struggle…and hope.

He lay the doctor down gently, and as M’Benga turned to the readouts Spock touched his fingers to McCoy’s face.

 _I will beg, Leonard,_ he sent through the contact. _Please, my friend; do not die._

**Author's Note:**

> These don't have to all be read, or read in order, but please make an author happy and check out the whole series.


End file.
